The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

by Karl Marx

"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" by Karl Marx is an essay written between December 1851 and March 1852. Marx analyzes the 1851 French coup d'état that transformed Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte from president into emperor. Applying his theory of historical materialism, Marx examines how class struggle and divisions among social groups enabled "a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero's part." The work explores the emergence of the Bonapartist state and features Marx's famous observation that history repeats itself—first as tragedy, then as farce.